


Alunakanula

by dashakay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:16:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moon has vanished.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alunakanula

**Author's Note:**

> Much gratitude to Plausible Deniability for being the Master of My Beta Domain.

The moon has vanished behind the clouds.

Above her head, the sky is rich black velvet. There is not a single star in the sky. Scully has never seen a darker night in her life.

She lies back in the chaise lounge in her mother's yard and stares up at the night sky.

Where are you now?

What terrifies her the most, makes the breath catch in the back of her throat, is that she may never know the answer to that question. Will she spend the rest of her life searching the skies?

No. She shakes her head. She will not have so little faith.

She scans the heavens for something, anything at all.

Scully has fled to the security of her mother's house. She has to think, calculate, and come up with a plan of action. Really, she should already be out in the field, should be hunting Krycek and Marita and shaking them down for answers when she finds them. But she needs to stop for a moment to catch her breath and marshal her forces. She'll need to do this right.

I will, she thinks, gritting her teeth. I have to.

She was surprised to find her mother not at home, until she remembered that it was the night for her St. John's Guild meeting. Scully let herself in with the key Maggie innocently keeps under the flowerpot to the left of the door and headed straight for the refrigerator. As long as Scully has been able to remember, her mother has always had a pitcher of lemonade in the fridge and a jar full of cookies. She poured herself a tall glass of the lemonade and grabbed a cookie like a little girl who needed a treat. This time the cookies were thin sugar cookies, light brown at the crisp edges.

Now matter how insane her life is, Scully can always count on lemonade and cookies. It's a small thing, but comforting.

She's trying to comprehend it all, to take the double whammy of events and shape them into something she can understand, but it's too much. It's huge.

Her arms feel empty and weightless. If only she could wrap them around his familiar form and whisper the surprising news in his ear. Scully imagines his eyebrows lifting and his mouth opening, the believer unable to believe. "That's impossible," he'd say and she'd nod her head in agreement.

Impossible is an understatement.

The first time they made love, Mulder reached into the drawer of his bedside table for a condom. "We don't need one," she whispered in his ear. She'd seen their blood work and they were clean. Pregnancy wasn't even in the realm of possibility.

From the time she became sexually active at the age of eighteen, Scully conscientiously avoided pregnancy. For years she took a birth control pill every morning with her orange juice. Later, as sex became fraught with greater risk, she toted around condoms and foam in her purse. And then, for a long time, there was nothing because she had no one. The condoms in her linen closet expired and she tossed them out. She figured she could always buy some more if it looked like she was about to have sex sometime in the near future.

Then there was the afternoon when she sat stiffly in the chair in her doctor's office, listening as Dr. Bailey gently explained that she'd never have children of her own. She remembers driving home in a daze, too shocked even to cry about the fact that this, too, had been taken from her.

She grew to accept, if not like, the fact of her infertility. Yes, she was angry. Yes, she felt the keen loss of the choice of motherhood taken from her without her consent, but there was nothing she could do about it. Wallowing in the pain and loss wouldn't do anything. She had to move on.

Still, sometimes she held a baby and smelled its sweet, soft skin and felt the ice pick of pain stab her straight through to the core. Scully bounced Theresa's baby on her lap and felt Mulder's gaze on her. She imagined she could read his mind-- if only, Scully. If only.

If only they'd know then what she knows now.

Her hand drifts to her belly, still fairly flat, and she imagines for a moment that she can feel her child moving in there. She closes her eyes and pictures the baby, swimming in its amniotic sea.

She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen the test results, both urine and blood, and hadn't had a thorough pelvic exam from a respected OB-GYN. Even though she'd been feeling dizzy and vaguely nauseated, pregnancy had never entered her mind. Her period hadn't been what you'd call regular since her abduction, so missing it for two months meant nothing at all to her. You could call it  
denial, but she calls it simple logic. It was impossible for her to get pregnant, therefore those symptoms did not mean pregnancy.

It's a warm, lovely May night but Scully shivers all the same, thinking about how she might have to go through all this alone. And she keeps wondering how, endlessly running the possibilities through her mind. Could a few eggs have been missed when the laparoscopy was done on her ovaries? Could something have been done to her while she was in Antarctica? What about the time she spent with the Smoking Man?

Bile rises in her throat and she washes it away with a swallow of lemonade. No, she would have known if that man had done something to her while she was with him. She would have felt it.

Two months, the OB told her at the hospital with a broad smile. More or less, Scully is two months pregnant. She's due in early December.

She tries to envision the cold air of December, possibly a little snow on the ground, as the labor pains hit her and she walks alone into the hospital to deliver the baby.

She can't. She can't see having the baby without Mulder.

I'll find you, she whispers into the dark yard.

Scully thinks back two months, trying to pin down when their child was conceived. March-- let's see, what happened in March?

She shuts her eyes, takes a deep breath and remembers a weekend in March when they spent the entire time at her apartment. There was no case, no paperwork and the icy rain that never let up left little incentive for them to actually go anywhere.

Before that weekend, she and Mulder had been together only a few times since their first time, on the morning of the new year. There was never any free time to spend together. It wasn't professional while out in the field and it never seemed like the right time when they were home.

Looking back, she can admit that a large part of it was simply that they were not used to being together, that they were shy in their new roles as lovers. It wasn't like the movies where two friends fall in love and all is bliss and rainbows thereafter. The few nights they spent together  
always seemed like a happy accident. "Oh, I wanted to show you the autopsy report." "Scully, did I leave my jacket over here?"

That weekend, the second in March, was when all their inhibitions were stripped away.

She remembers endless lovemaking and their surprise and delight in it. Hours and hours of it, from hot, fierce Friday night on the couch to lazy Sunday evening in the bathtub, slopping water and bubbles on the tile floor and bathmat. They were suddenly insatiable, driven together again and again like hormonal teenagers after the prom. She wouldn't have believed that Mulder, nearly forty, could keep going, but he did.

That weekend she felt alive, surrounded by the lush textures and smells of sex, finally experiencing it in its multicolored, three-dimensional form. She was finally free of the bonds of guilt and inhibition. Sex with Mulder was free and natural; they just fit together, despite their difference in size.

There were many new discoveries. She could come, from his hands, his mouth, his cock, again and again until she feared she might burst a blood vessel in her brain from rolling her eyes back in her head. She loved having Mulder squirming under her while she took his cock in her mouth and teased him with slow, slow movements in and out. She could touch herself while he was inside her and he wasn't offended, didn't take it to be a comment on his prowess. It only made him even more aroused.

They couldn't seem to stop as the rain continued to batter the windows. They ordered in pizza and Thai food, gulped down orange juice and beer to rehydrate, and now and then took a catnap. Every time they tried to innocently sit on the couch and watch a movie, the dialogue and music just became the background noise to their escalating moans and groans.

At one point Mulder looked at her, his face flushed and sweaty, his hair standing up in damp spikes and gasped, "What's happening to us?"

She laughed and said, "This is lust, Mulder."

They'd had the love for a long time, now was the time for lust.

But now they were free to speak of love, too.

"I love you, I love you, I love love love love you," Mulder chanted in a strained voice as he thrust deeply into her from behind, his hands on her thighs.

When they were sore they didn't stop, but simply went slowly, only touching each other with gentle, lubricant-coated fingers, mouths and tongues melding together.

They constantly kissed-- during the opening credits of The Matrix, while trying to make some eggs, in the shower, while checking their office voice mail.

Now Scully can't remember if they ever put on clothes that weekend.

In the past, she'd always needed to have sex in the dark. She didn't like the sight of her body and didn't want anyone else to be subjected to it in the unforgiving glare of daylight. Her legs were small and stubby. One breast was slightly larger than the other. Her belly was scarred from being shot. Sometimes she had a pimple on her butt.

But Mulder worshipped her body that weekend, kissing and licking every inch, groaning about how he'd always dreamed of kissing the soft insides of her elbows. He went on for so long about the beauty of her breasts that she smacked his bare bottom to shut him up. He spent a long time between her legs, licking her with languorous finesse, stopping to comment on how good she tasted and how much he loved to eat her and wanted nothing more than to spend the whole day there.

She watched as they made love in front of the mirror on the back of her bedroom closet. How beautiful we are, she thought.

She caught herself strutting around her apartment without a stitch on her body, feeling proud as a queen. Scully knew she was far from perfect, but in Mulder's eyes that weekend, she was flawless.

And she gave as good as she got, standing back in the shower to watch the water running down his broad chest and strong thighs. She even loved the scar under his shoulder. Like the scientist she was trained to be, she watched his cock thicken and rise at her touch. She kissed the mole on his cheek and the tip of his strong nose, the nose she knew he secretly hated. Never had she imagined that a man could have such soft lips.

They shared a few secrets, drinking wine in front of the fire, wrapped in her comforter, which smelled like their bodies. It wasn't easy, for they weren't used to speaking of things so personal, but the stories came out slowly and haltingly. Old loves, disappointments past, humiliations in  
the name of romance. They held hands and watched in a daze as the flames danced in the hearth.

She woke in the middle of the night and found their fingers were still entwined and resting on the sheet between them. His hand, large and brown, hers small and white. Their hands were together, even in sleep.

Even then, as she was immersed in the moment, she knew it wouldn't always be this blissful, this hungry and untamed. They were spending this weekend sealing the deal, reassuring one another that they were loved. It was the turning point they had so badly needed. After this it would no longer be so awkward.

On Sunday night, Scully kissed him at the door and watched him walk, somewhat bowlegged, down the hall to the front door. She shut the door behind her, leaned against it and smiled.

Now she suspects, with a growing certainty, that by the time Mulder left her apartment she was pregnant. While she had grinned and flashed on some of the more ecstatic moments of the weekend's bacchanal, cells were rapidly multiplying and life was forming.

*

Alone in the back yard, Scully feels tears approaching and wills herself not to cry. She can't afford to. Now she needs to be strong, in control, powerful.

If Mulder had known she was pregnant would he have gone to Oregon? She shrugs at her own rhetorical question. What-if situations never do anyone any good.

She wonders if Mulder felt like this after she'd been taken, this dull ache, this empty hollow in his chest. Her hand reflexively reaches for the gold cross around her neck and she finds it's not there.

Of course it's not. She gave it to Mulder.

Their farewell was brief, which was somewhat of a mercy. She and Mulder never did goodbye scenes well.

Mulder and Skinner had to race to make their flight to Portland. Down in the office Mulder gathered a few things and stuffed them into his briefcase-- files, books, some strange-looking equipment she'd never seen before and a toiletry kit he kept in his desk. Scully stood by the door  
and watched him with a numbed fascination.

He turned to face her and cleared his throat.

This is not our goodbye, she thought. He'll be back in a few days.

She forced a smile on her face. "Are you sure I can't talk you into letting me come along?"

Mulder raised his hands in a gesture of appeasement. "We can't take that kind of risk."

She nodded and kissed him, gently, and felt something break inside of her. A little whisper in her head told her that Mulder wouldn't be returning. He was racing towards a destiny that had begun seven years ago in that little town in the Oregon woods. They'd come full circle and here was  
where they parted ways.

Scully chose to ignore the whisper. Mulder would be fine.

Her fingers clumsily undid the clasp on the gold chain that held her cross and the links pooled in her hand. She held it out to him like an offering.

"I want you to wear this," she whispered.

"Scully," he said in a raspy voice and turned his head from her. She wondered if he were blinking away tears.

He bent his head and she fastened the chain around his neck. It was a little tight, but it would do. She tucked it under his shirt.

Mulder gripped her hands, his eyes soft and bright with tears. "I love you, Scully."

"I love you, too."

There didn't seem to be much more to say. She turned away and walked toward the desk. Behind her, she heard his footsteps down the hall to the elevator and then nothing at all.

"Dana?"

Her mother's voice jolts her from her reminiscence. Her eyes open.

"Yeah, Mom, I'm out here."

"I thought that was your car out front...

Scully can hear the grass rustling as her mother walks towards her. Her stomach lurches and threatens to close in upon itself, nerves working overtime. She has a lot to tell her mom.

One afternoon, when she was a teenager, Scully heard her mother say to a friend on the phone, "You know, Dana is the one child I never worry about."

She felt proud of that, for some reason. She never made her mother worry.

How times have changed. These days, Dana is probably the only child her mother worries about.

She hates to tell her mother more bad news.

She fears telling her mother the good news.

Her mouth goes dry and Scully takes a steadying sip of lemonade. She wishes she could have a nice, safe life where she could tell her mother nearly everything and her mother would understand.

All the things that have happened over the last seven years--abductions, shootings, cancer, infertility, Melissa's death-- have made Scully a better and stronger person, but they've also alienated her from her mother. She never wants to worry her mother more than necessary, which has meant some judicious editing when talking to her.

But she can't do it now. She can only be honest.

I'm sorry, she thinks, silently addressing her mother. I never wanted to hurt you like this, to make you lose sleep and peace of mind worrying about me. She feels like a teenage girl, about to confess her boyfriend got her pregnant and ran off. Seduced and abandoned, the oldest theme in literature.

She feels ashamed, proud and afraid.

Scully swings her legs over the edge of the chaise lounge so Maggie can sit next to her.

"Are you all right?" Her mother touches her face.

Her resolve not to cry crumbles at the gentle tone of her mother's voice. The tears are already beginning to slide, warm and sticky, down her face.

"No," she says, hugging her chest and looking at her lap. "I'm not all right."

As her mother wraps her arms around her, Scully lets it all out in a jumble of tears and words.

Maggie says nothing, just rocks her daughter, crooning something wordless and comforting. In the back of her mind, Scully wonders if it will be like this with her own child some day. Will she have to provide comfort and security while her heart breaks for her child?

When she's done telling her mother, Maggie wipes away her own tears and says, "Dana, why don't you stay over tonight? We still have so much to talk about."

Scully nods.

"We can go to Mass in the morning."

She can thank God for a miracle and pray for another one.

Maggie stands and takes Dana's hand, trying to tug her up.  
"Let's go inside. It's getting chilly."

"I'll be there in a second," Scully says. "I just need a moment alone."

Her mother walks towards the house and even in the dark Scully can see how her posture is slumped.

She looks at the sky one more time but sees nothing. The moon is still hidden.

*

It takes Scully a long time to fall asleep. She's not accustomed to spending the night in her mother's cheerful guestroom with its rose-sprigged wallpaper. The mattress is too soft for her taste and she's unnerved by the silence from the lack of street noise.

For a while she flips through a magazine to relax, but she finds herself scanning the glossy pages without even really looking at them. She thinks about how when her mother was pregnant with her, her father was at sea, fighting in Vietnam. Maggie had no idea if her husband would ever return, if he would leave her alone with three young children who would grow up never knowing the extraordinary man who was their father.

In the morning, she'll have to ask her mom about that time in her life.

As the hour turns very late, she realizes she's afraid to turn the light off and try to sleep.

When she finally snaps off the lamp, all her fears are realized. She tries to shut her eyes and pray, but the words won't come. Tonight, she feels no connection to God. Instead, she thinks terrible thoughts-- babies with green hybrid blood, babies sick like Emily was, never seeing Mulder again, raising her child alone, Mulder strapped to a table and enduring terrible tortures, labor pains, bloody miscarriages, Mulder dead, babies with horrible deformities, babies crying and crying and crying...

She doesn't cry, alone in the dark bedroom. There aren't any tears left to shed.

After a long time, she drifts off into an uneasy sleep.

*

It's the middle of the night and the sound of wailing wakes her. In a gesture that is now automatic to her, she rises from the bed, turns on the light and walks across the room to the bassinet.

She lifts her baby up and gathers him in her arms, amazed as always that he's so small, so light, that he's hers. She takes a deep whiff of the sweet, milky scent of his head.

She lays him down on the changing table and peeks in his diaper. He's dry. "Hungry, are you?" she asks him with a grin.

In some ways, this is her favorite time, when it's dark and quiet outside, when nothing in the world exists except for the two of them. But it's also the loneliest time, when she keenly feels just how alone she is with this child.

She settles in the rocker by the window and unbuttons her nightgown. The baby latches at her breast and begins to suck greedily. Looking down at his tiny head, she notices how his hair is becoming thicker and darker every day. His eyes, blue at birth, are beginning to turn a gray shade and she wonders if they'll someday be the same color as his father's.

Stroking the downy cheek of her baby, Scully bites her lip.

She turns off the lamp, preferring a blanket of darkness in the bedroom. But it's not completely dark. There's a silvery light flooding the room, casting deep shadows. She looks outside the window and sees a huge full moon, glowing supernaturally bright in the sky. For some reason, the  
sight of it makes her smile.

After he's drained her dry of milk, her son gives a resounding belch and drifts back off to sleep. Instead of putting him back to bed, Scully holds him against her and slowly rocks, humming a song with no words.

She never knew she could love like this, hold her baby in the middle of the night and sing to him.

Scully starts as she hears the bedroom door creak open. Her entire body goes rigid and she wonders how she can go for the gun in her bedside table drawer as fast as she can. But despite all her training, she finds herself unable to move or breathe.

A man walks through the door. In the moonlight she sees a tall figure, skinny, with disheveled hair and a beard.

Time stops...

"Scully," he says in a rough, scratchy voice.

No. She's dreaming, she's still sleeping, she'll wake in a moment and find herself alone with the baby in the rocker.

But she doesn't wake up.

Her lips form the word, but no sound leaves her mouth.

Mulder.

No, he's gone, he's never returning, it's a dream, a dream.

Never before has her heart beaten so rapidly.

He crosses the room and kneels by the chair, his eyes large in his thin face.

This time the word comes out. "Mulder," she gasps, reaching to touch his hair.

He touches the sleeping baby's head. "Is it?" he whispers hesitantly.

She nods. "Yes," she says. "He's yours."

Mulder's head drops. "Oh God, I didn't know."

The baby wiggles in her arms, now awake. She lifts him off her shoulder with her trembling hands and lays him in her lap.

"I didn't know," Mulder repeats. "If I'd known, I wouldn't have..."

She interrupts him. "It's all right, Mulder, you're back now." Tears are blurring her vision and running down her face.

Mulder leans forward and wraps his arms around her. She touches his face, his hair and his back to make sure it's really him and not another dream.

He's back. He's alive and whole. He's real. It's Mulder.

They stay frozen in their embrace for a long time, the three of them, while the moon shines through the window.

*

And Scully's eyes open and she finds herself still in her mother's guest bedroom, still alone. Her cheeks are wet with her tears.

She wonders how many dreams she'll have like this.

She gets out of bed and walks over to the window. It's still dark outside and there's no moon or stars in the inky  
sky.

Touching her belly with her hand, she leans forward and presses her forehead against the cool glass.

She looks up at the sky and wishes for the moon.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Alunakanula is a Russian palindrome, created by the poet Andrei Voznesensky, that means, "the moon has vanished." I've always loved a good palindrome (my brother had this freakish talent for creating them when we were kids) and I read about this one the same day I watched "Requiem." For some reason, it seemed like a nice fit with the theme of the episode.


End file.
